The largest amount of time and effort I devoted to this kit were the windows, which is probably the main reason it lay around in a box half finished for years. The clear parts could best be described as a "drop fit". That is, when you go to fit them they drop out constantly unless restrained by a large Russian woman with arms the size of telephone poles. I had to add plastic sheet behind the upper windows to make them fit. This worked a treat, however it was to come back and bite me later as the decals were sized to fit the original larger window openings so I had quite a bit of touching up to do. The front lower windows were the worst fit as you can see from the picture below. I filled the gaps with superglue and then sanded and polished them. When it came time to paint I cut the masks to the size of the clear parts rather than the opening to hide the superglue.
The decals are the highlight of the kit. I had serious doubts that they would fit properly or conform to all the compound curves but I was very pleasantly surprised when it came time to decal the wee beasty. They are absolutely superb, settling down into all the nooks and crannies with the help of Micro Sol and the fit was well nigh perfect. I managed to find a couple of pics of this helicopter on the net which shows the paint job to be a beautifully airbrushed mural of galaxies, stars & comets. Sadly, the limitations of reproducing this in decal form makes it look more like a helicopter that has flown through a large flock of dysenteric Seagulls....
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
|||||
Back
to 1/72 Aircraft Main